[OS X TeX] Word count function?

[Peter Pagin]

I wouldn't have thought that the inclusion of page numbers is a serious 
problem for a word count. Assuming that each page numeral occurrence is 
one word, deduct the number of pages of the output from the word count 
result.

Best,
Peter

Maarten Sneep wrote:

> On 18 jan 2005, at 2:12, Themis Matsoukas wrote:
>
>> On Jan 17, 2005, at 7:10 PM, Ettore Aldrovandi wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 12:56:42AM +0100, Maarten Sneep wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 18 jan 2005, at 0:50, Ettore Aldrovandi wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>     detex file.tex|wc -w
>>>>
>>>
>>>> And be sure to read
>>>>     http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=wordcount
>>>> to understand why the result might be way off.
>>>
>>>
>>> Didn't claim it is precise. [...] If it is mostly text, maybe the
>>> inaccuracy wouldn't be so serious.
>>
>>
>> Excalibur will count fairly accurately w/o including latex commands. 
>> You can invoke it through texshop via an applescript. I use the 
>> following (copied directly from the Macros menu):
>
>
> Any means of automated counting is bound to be inacurate: please count 
> the number of words in $E = mc^2$. Besides: if you use a bibliography, 
> the number of words will be seriously underestimated, unless detex 
> includes the .bbl files for you (the command \bibliography{} will 
> introduce many pages). More commands that introduce significant 
> lengths of text are known to exist.
>
> There is a trick that might work to some extend (leaving the maths as 
> an unresolved issue): count the number of words in the output of 
> dvi2tty instead of detex. Since this counts the words in the output of 
> TeX, it is likely to generate a more accurate result, although it 
> still leaves the problem of page numbers. To get around that issue: 
> use tex4ht and count the words in the html output.
>
> Maarten
>
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           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
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